MIXP - Mauritius Internet Exchange Point

06/06/2024

Event update: Downtime on the MIXP

Potential impact: MIXP peering has recovered but some value add services are still recovering.

Root Cause: To be determine

Start date: 5 Jun 24 @ 21:11MUT

End date: 6 June @ 00:21MUT

We shall keep you posted

05/06/2024

We are facing a downtime on the MIXP

Potential impact: MIXP peers may face downtime on their connection to the MIXP and peering

Root Cause: To be determine

Start time and date: 5 Jun 24 @ 21:11MUT

We shall keep you posted

14/08/2023

The traffic surge on since undersea cables have been damaged! Still wondering if helps the local networks in ?

Start peering today for free via [email protected]

Keessun Fokeerah

29/07/2022

Congratulations! Mr Ranveer Amrish Seetaloo was elected as Chairman and Dr. Amreesh Phokeer as Vice-Chair by the MIXP Mgmt committee members when the mancom met on 18th July 2022. They shall serve for a term of 1 year.

- Keessun Fokeerah(MIXP Secretariat)

30/06/2022

MIXP elections results are out! https://lists.mixp.org/pipermail/mixp-announcement/2022q2/000035.html
Congratulations to the newly elected mancom

10/05/2022

Hi, This is the final reminder! You can still be a volunteer on the Management committee. We shall close the call for volunteers at 16:00 MUT on 12 May 2022

If you feel up to the challenge and want to contribute to the peering community, please apply via [email protected],

13/04/2022

Do you want to help on the MIXP management committee?

See original post at: https://lists.mixp.org/pipermail/mixp-announcement/2022q2/000028.html

Hello everyone,

The MIXP operates the community-run Internet exchange point, with the management committee elected from the general Internet community. It is now time to elect new members to the management committee. This is your chance to contribute to the management and operations of the 100% community operated IXP, to grow a better peering environment for yourselves and the Internet community. Elected persons are natural persons; ie. they do not have to be from a participating network at the MIXP, nor from any particular geography, but should have a legitimate interest in improving the peering landscape. (Note: However, only peering networks are eligible to vote).

The committee usually meet online once a month, to set policy and provide managerial oversight to the MIXP's operations. Committee members may also jointly decide for meet in person.

Are you, or someone else at your organisation willing to stand as a candidate for MIXP’s Management Committee for 2022?

If you'd like to suggest someone, or even nominate yourself, please indicate as follows:
I'd like to suggest the following potential candidate:

Name:
Email address:
Organisation:
Have you checked if this person is willing? [ ] Yes [ ] Not yet

Alternatively, is there perhaps someone whom you think the MIXP team should approach to potentially serve on the Management Committee?

I'd like to suggest the following potential candidate:

Name:
Email address:
Organisation:
Have you checked if this person is willing? [ ] Yes [ ] Not yet

If you feel up to the challenge, and want to contribute to the peering community, please reply to [email protected], by 16:00 MUT on 12 May 2022.

Kind regards,
Keessun Fokeerah
MIXP secretariat

05/04/2022

It has been a while since we last sent
out an update about MIXP activities, and we thought that it would be
useful to keep you updated on some of the work that has been happening
in the background.

#1 - 10Gb/s port availability
We’ve recently taken delivery of 2x 10Gb/s capable switches, courtesy of
a kind donation from our friends at INX-ZA in South Africa. We have
already integrated one of these into the MIXP fabric, and we are
thrilled to announce that we are ready to support peers that want to
upgrade their ports to 10Gb/s at the MIXP-RGC site, as from 4 April
2022. Ports at the MIXP are at no cost, thanks to sponsorships and
donations, so upgrading to a 10Gb/s port will continue to be free!

#2 - Sunset on copper, and multi-mode fibre ports.
As we move along the technology ladder, we need to be able to leave
legacy behind us. To that end, the MIXP will no longer be supporting
copper and multi-mode fibre ports. All future connections from peers
*MUST* be via single-mode fibre 1310nm. This will provide you with the
best long-term growth opportunities.

#3 - Upcoming maintenance
Two years ago, we implemented RPKI checking, and dropping of RPKI
invalid prefix announcements. We are now working on the next extension
to our route-server platform (anti dDOS techniques) and to make that
transition smooth, we would need to upgrade the route-server daemons at
the MIXP. Starting in two weeks, we’ll be migrating to new versions of
the existing software/daemons that support some of the features we’ve
identified that we need.
We are quite excited by this change for several reasons, and we’ll
announce more on the plans to implement anti dDOS techniques, as well as
some planned training that we would like to perform within the
community, so that you (the peers) can make the most of this important
feature.

#4 - Call for volunteers
The team that runs and build the infrastructure for the MIXP is purely
volunteer-led. We work in our spare time to keep the IX operational,
and to grow new services. We are a small group of dedicated volunteers,
that believe in peering, and the benefits that it can bring to the
Internet ecosystem in Mauritius. If you would like to be a part of this
dynamic team, and are willing to dedicate a few hours a month to making
the MIXP better, please write to us, mentioning your interest, and
skill-set.

#5 - Call for donations
As mentioned earlier, the MIXP is run at no-cost to participants, thanks
to ongoing sponsorship and donations. In order to continue to grow the
MIXP, and add additional services, we have need of several items that
would make the MIXP operations smoother. If you feel that the MIXP is
adding value to your network, and are willing to make a small in-kind
donation, please write to us at [email protected].

For the MIXP volunteer team,
Keessun.

--
Keessun Fokeerah
MIXP team
--
Mauritius Internet Exchange Point(MIXP)
w:

The Mauritius Internet Exchange Point (MIXP) is the first Internet exchange point in Mauritius. It is open to any network operator that believes that they can make their network more efficient through peering.

07/05/2020

The MIXP has taken a further step in helping to reduce the potential for routing abuse, by digitally signing the network prefixes that it uses for operating the IXP in Mauritius. This is part of its ongoing programme to grow and foster best practices in IXP management, and teaching networks best peering practices.

RPKI is a mechanism for cryptographically signalling which Internet network (or, in technical terms, which origin autonomous system) is allowed to publish a routing statement for a block of IP addresses. This is one of the techniques that has become widespread to help combat some of the attempts at hijacking network address space; a very real problem that exists on the Internet, and one that is likely going to get worse, as it becomes more and more difficult to get additional IPv4 address space.

Three weeks ago, the MIXP took the important step of dropping all routing announcements, that are considered to be a violation of this policy, that go through the MIXP routing infrastructure. We did this, after research into the networks prefixes that are announced at the MIXP, and after working with participating domestic operators to clean up their networks.

Over the past week, the MIXP team signed the network prefixes (IP addresses) that we use for the MIXP infrastructure. This means that any well-run network, that participates in using RPKI, will automatically be immune to routing hijacks for the MIXP address space, and is considered global best practice. The MIXP team is hoping to encourage more network operators in Mauritius to start using RPKI, and hopes to start running training classes on this soon.

During this process, we uncovered a bug in the AFRINIC RPKI system, that we are working with AFRINIC to resolve. This highlights, the need for operators to “get their hands dirty” with newer technologies, so that they earn confidence, and make sure that the supporting systems around this, are built to scale, and support operator needs.

17/04/2020

AS112 live at MIXP! MIXP is now one of the multiple volunteer operators participating in the AS112 project.

AS112 project aims at securing the DNS system. AS112 helps reduce the load on IANA blackhole servers by answering PTR queries for private IPv4 addresses.

The AS112 project provides a large number of servers distributed across the world. This will reduce the load on DNS root servers and makes the DNS system more secure and robust against DNS DDoS attacks.

Further Reading:

NEWS: RFC 7534, which obsoletes RFC 6304, was published by the IETF in May of 2015. Operators are strongly advised to review changes to AS112 operations, specifically around IPv6.

16/04/2020

The MIXP team is pleased to announce that they have performed a significant overhaul, and upgrade of the BGP route server service at the MIXP. From the past weekend, the MIXP BGP route server service now does RPKI validation, and drops those network prefixes that have an RPKI state of "Invalid".

Along with completely automated IRRDB based filtering, this helps to secure users of the service against accidental Internet route leaks, and brings the operations of the MIXP Service, in line with international best practices. To facilitate debugging, peers also have access to an easy to interpret mechanism for discovering which prefixes are filtered and the reason(s) for this.

Peers with an open peering policy are encouraged to setup BGP session with the BGP route servers; we strongly advise peering with *both* route servers for resiliency. The MIXP team is certain that this positive step contributes to a safer, and more stable internetworking community in Mauritius.

Questions and/or comments should be sent to [email protected]

You can set up sessions to the following:

Route Server 1:
ASN: 37324
IPv4 Neighbour: 196.223.0.201
IPv6 Neighbour: 2001:43f8:270:d0d0::201

Route Server 2:
ASN: 37324
IPv4 Neighbour: 196.223.0.202
IPv6 Neighbour: 2001:43f8:270:d0d0::202

Route-collector/looking-glass service: Peering to this will never result in any traffic exchange. This is meant purely for troubleshooting and statistical purposes. Peering sessions to the route collector server are publicly viewable here: https://lg.mixp.org/

Route Collector
ASN: 327821
IPv4: 196.223.0.199
IPv6: 2001:43f8:270:d0d0::199